


i lost my way when i lost you

by teasgaypanic



Category: Station 19 (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Bi Maggie Pierce, Bi Vic Hughes, Dean and Vic friendship, Dean and vic coparenting, Depression, F/F, F/M, Lucas Ripley is dead, Lucas and Vic have a daughter, Maggie and Vic will be slowburn, but im going to actually handle vics grief, cryptic pregnancy, like dead dead, like slow slow slow slow burn, oh and lucas is a ghost in vics head sometimes, unless i get impatient
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29603376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teasgaypanic/pseuds/teasgaypanic
Summary: Lucas Ripley passed away, but he graced Vic with one last thing before he passed away.
Relationships: Lucas Ripley/Victoria Hughes(Past), Victoria Hughes/Maggie Pierce
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	1. i dont want to lose you

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Max for beating as always. Love you.
> 
> I will be crying while writing this but I love this idea when it was born.

Vic was absolutely terrified. The tears were falling down her face. She couldn’t do this.

Let’s just look past the fact that she had just lost her fiance just about… oh, she would say about nine months ago.

Now here she was, having a panic attack in Grey-Sloan hospital because she apparently was having something called a cryptic pregnancy.

She couldn’t do this. She was scared enough to get married almost a year ago, but now she was apparently going to a mother. She had come to the hospital because she was having a stomach ache, more like a cramp, and some extreme back pain.

She had initially chalked it up to her job. She was a firefighter. Her job was carrying hoses up and sometimes people down. Her muscles were sore most of the time. 

She couldn’t do this alone. She really couldn’t. Living in her apartment alone was hard enough most of the time, but now she was going to have to be a mother alone as well. 

But she didn’t know who she was supposed to call.

Before she could make a decision for herself, the last person she truly expected to show up had, Maggie Pierce.

“Oh Vic, I am so sorry,” she said, with a few tears rolling down her cheek. “Is there anyone I can call for you?” 

“Yes… yes, can you call Jenn, an-and Travis for me? I need them right now,” she asked, uncertainly. She really didn’t know what to do.

“Of course Vic, if you just unlock your phone I’ll use it to get a hold of them. I also don’t have any more surgeries today, so if you need anything at all I’m here for you,” Maggie said. Still nervous, but feeling slightly better about the situation, she wiped the tears from her face. 

She had to work through thirty minutes of contractions before Travis showed up, and these tears were no longer from the pregnancy, but she really needed her person right now.

“Oh Vic, I’m not going to say sorry because I’m guessing you’ve heard it enough today, but I love you so very much and if you need anything I’m here. I just wanted to ask, but do you want me to call Captain Sullivan to make sure that he knows neither of us will be in tomorrow? I can keep this all quiet if you’re not ready to say anything right now.”

Vic just calmly nodded her head, and Travis walked out of the room after making sure she was alright to make the call. 

Jenn clearly had perfect timing because as soon as Travis left the room. Vic could tell that she had been crying. Vic had a hard time distinguishing this from the last time that she had seen Jenn crying in a hospital, and Vic’s tear started anew. 

“Oh Vic, it’s going to be okay, everything is going to be okay,” Jenn said softly, grabbing Vic’s hand tightly.

Another contraction hit Vic, and she tightened her grip on Jenn’s hand. She had already been here for three hours. The OB came to let her know that she was five centimeters dilated, and that if she wanted to take a nap, now would be the time. Vic had never been happier to hear something in her life, well that would be a lie. She had been incredibly happy when she had heard Luke say yes to her proposal, but this would be a close second. 

Vic fell into a short, but relatively restful nap, still holding Jenn's hand.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When she woke up, it was to the sound of her team quietly talking outside the door. She had no idea who had let them know, but she was glad to see them.

“Hey guys,” she slightly yelled. She could hear the excitement in her own voice. Her family was here for her. 

Before her team could come in, Owen Hunt made his way into her room. It was a relatively quick meeting, but he let her know that if she needed anything the hospital was there for her. He had apparently met Luke before, and he said that it was also the least the hospital could do for a first responder.

“Thank you, Dr. Hunt, it means more than you know,” Vic replied, once again getting emotional.

“Anytime Hughes,” he replied, exiting the room and motioning her team in.

The first thing that happened was Dean, and he hurried over and gave her a hug. 

“Vic, don’t worry about anything else. Even though JJ is gone, I still have all the necessities and you can live with us for as long as you need,” Dean said, and it made her tears renew all over again. 

“Hey!” Gibson cried indignantly, but he and Herrera had already been making plans to move in together so it was fine. He was just somewhat of a drama king sometimes. 

Vic laughed, and you could see some of the relief shine on her teams’ faces. It gave them all a little time to calm down, and it just made her laugh a little harder. Her family was here for her.

After a little more time of chatting, the OB came back in and said that she was at nine centimeters. It was almost time for her to push, so they kicked her team out. All of them but Travis and Jenn. There was still a little more time before then, but her team told her that they would all be there for her when she was done.

Jenn, Travis, and she talked a little more about simple things like she and Luke used to do. Usually, that would make her incredibly sad, but now she had to focus on giving birth to the last gift that Luke had given her.

After about another thirty minutes, Jenn and Travis took their position on either side of her and grabbed onto her hands. It was time for her to push, and it was a very painful experience. The whole thing from Scrubs, about pushing the minty fresh gel through the toothpaste container was complete and utter bullshit. It wasn’t that nice.

It took almost a whole two hours for her to finally push the baby out, but when it was finally out she could see the most beautiful baby she had ever seen. Sure the baby was still bloody, but they were still the most beautiful thing that she had ever seen. She had never loved anything else more than she loved the baby that she now couldn’t take her eyes off.

“It’s a girl,” one of the nurses said, and it made her incredibly happy.

After her daughter was wiped off, and she finally was able to hold her, she looked into her eyes and couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She looked to her left and noticed that Jen was crying, and she could hear Travis half laughing, half crying about how she was the most beautiful caramel baby with blue eyes he had ever seen. She couldn’t agree more.

Later that night, after Travis had left and Jenn had fallen asleep in a cot in her room, she sat up just staring down at her daughter. She would do anything for this little girl. She might’ve lost her hubby, but she now had her daughter to keep his memory alive. She would and will do anything for her daughter, no matter what it was.

She just laid there, completely awake, keeping an eye on her daughter and peppering her face with kisses every little bit. 

“Grace,” Vic whispered to her daughter. “You’re the most beautiful little girl I’ve ever seen, and your name is Grace.”


	2. life goes on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on. Vic and Grace leave the hospital, and Vic takes her on a trip down memory lane, but she realizes that she can't do this alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some creative liberty with where they said I love you for the first time. It fit my story well so I went with it.
> 
> As always, thank you Max for betaing.

Vic woke up the next morning tired and very, very sore. It was almost like she had passed a small human through her body yesterday afternoon.

And she wouldn’t give it up for the world. Her beautiful girl, Grace, was a gift from her Luke, and she would never give her gift up for anything. It might have been a good surprise, a very shocking surprise, but a good surprise nevertheless.

Grace looked much cleaner than she did yesterday, and she was sleeping so peacefully today. She was so small, and it had hit her hard last night just how small and breakable Grace looked, but Vic was a firefighter and she had either delivered or helped deliver babies before and she knew that she could do this.

Vic never got the chance to be a wife to Lucas Ripley, but Luke had given her the chance to be a mother to Grace Victoria Hughes-Ripley. She didn’t mean to sound narcissistic when naming her child, but Luke’s family had been from Victoria in Australia and he had always told her how much he loved her name. It felt like something that he would’ve done if he was here with her today, and it allowed her to feel even closer to Luke through their daughter.

She had just been laying there, staring at her daughter, when Jenn woke up on the cot on the other side of her bed. She got up and walked over to Victoria, kissed her temple, and then walked around her hospital to sit in the chair next to the bassinet and stare at her niece. After a few seconds she looked up to Vic, and Vic could see the tears starting to fall from Jenn’s face. “Thank you, Vic, thank you so very much. If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know whenever.”

Vic started to tear up — she had been doing that a lot the last few months — and she had found herself at a loss for words. 

“Of course Jenn, and whenever you need to feel closer to Luke you can always come over and see her,” Vic said sincerely. She might have lost a fiancé, but she had gained a sister through that sweet and amazingly kind man. 

At that point the OB, Carina DeLuca walked into the room and stopped short after seeing the tears that were in the two womens' eyes. She knocked on the open door and stood there for a few seconds with such caring in her eyes that it just made the two women start crying ten times more.

“I’m just going to take young Grace here for a few seconds and do a quick checkup, just to make sure everything is alright,” Dr. DeLuca said, and Vic and Jenn could only nod their heads.

DeLuca walked over to the bassinet and picked Grace up. Grace continued to sleep peacefully while she was carried over to the baby station, and even after she had a stethoscope put onto her chest she kept sleeping peacefully. 

“Heart and lungs are functioning normally, even after a cryptic pregnancy, and your daughter seems to be happy and healthy,” the doctor said. Vic just continued to cry, she had never really thought about how her daughter might have been affected after not knowing she had been pregnant for months, but she had luckily stopped drinking after Luke had passed. The smell reminded her too much of him.

“Thank you, Dr. DeLuca,” Jenn said, also continuing to cry.

The doctor nodded and gave them each a smile, and then carried Grace over and put her into Vic’s arms. All Vic could do was stare down into her daughter's face before kissing her onto the temple.

The day flew by after the checkup. Her daughter woke up every few hours hungry or because she went to the restroom, and while Vic was learning on the fly she made sure that it was always Jenn or herself that changed Grace’s diaper.

Her team stopped by. They had the day off, so Travis had come over, and he had spent the day with them there in her hospital room. He had never looked so happy to Vic as the moment that she had lowered her daughter into his arms.

“She’s beautiful Vic, truly beautiful,” Travis had said, looking straight into Vic's eyes. That was until he looked at the baby girl and started cooing things like “Oh yes you are,” and “The most beautiful baby I have ever seen, oh yes you are.”

While Grace had been in the nursery she had taken a quick nap, and when she had woken up her team had been there. Apparently, her daughter had been strolled back in during her nap, and she was being passed around like a hot potato. Right now she was being held by Captain Sullivan, and she felt kind of guilty at that second. She had been so busy trying to get a hold of Jenn and Travis that she had forgotten that Sullivan and Ripley had been friends. She should’ve called him too.

“Alright, can I see my daughter again, I’ve missed her...”

Her team laughed, and it felt good to finally laugh along with them. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she hadn’t been the same the last nine months without Luke. They had gone back to normal relatively well, or at least her team had. Yeah, there had been questions about the chief, and she hadn’t answered them right away, but eventually, she started to tell them more about Luke. 

To them, he would always be the Fire Chief of the Seattle Fire Department, the person that Vic had asked to marry her, and the man who had fathered the adorable baby that she was now the mother too.

But to her, he had been the love of her life. He had loved her as no one had ever loved her before. He loved her unconditionally. Sometimes she felt that her parents couldn’t even say the same thing. They were good people, and great parents when they could be, but they were busy trying to give her the best life that they could, and sometimes that meant losing time with her mother and father. 

He had loved her unconditionally. If she was in a bad mood, he would always try to make her feel better. He would tell jokes, just sit on the couch with her doing something silly while he did the paperwork, and allowed her to talk about the craziest parts of her day. She didn’t see herself ever going a day without remembering him and his terrible… dad jokes. 

She started to cry again, and her team and Jenn looked over to her worriedly. 

“He’ll never see his daughter! He’ll never be able to be her father. She won’t ever get to know him,” she said, holding on to her daughter like a lifeline. 

Surprisingly it had been Andy who walked over to her and gave her a soft hug as not to squash her daughter. 

“Yes, he’s gone, and I am unbelievably sorry for that fact Vic, but Grace will get to know her father. The team and I will be able to tell her one day how amazing he was at his job, and how much he cared about the lives of his firefighters, and you will have Jenn, Sullivan, and you there to tell her about Luke, the amazing man that you gave your heart too.”

She kissed her daughter on the head, then passed her off to Jenn and quickly grabbed Andy into a hug. She hadn’t known how much she had needed to hear that, and it meant the world to know that her team was going to be there for her and her daughter. She hadn’t needed to worry at all, but she had.

Before she knew it, her whole team was grabbing the two of them into a family hug, all except Sullivan, but when they had all stopped hugging she had looked over to see the smile on his face. 

  
After that, visiting hours were over and her team said their goodbyes to her, Grace, and Jenn. Dr. DeLuca had come back after that and gave Grace one last checkup. 

Once the checkup was over with, DeLuca looked over to her and gave them a smile. “Vic, you and Grace are doing amazing, and I think that we can send you home tomorrow. You don’t have to worry about anything at all, the hospital has spares in pediatrics for anything you will need short term giving you a chance to buy anything else that you will need.” 

“Thank you,” Vic said sincerely, the top three things on her list that she was worried about now taken care of. 

Jenn looked over at Vic, and she calmly grabbed her hand. “If you need anything, anything at all Vic, just let me know. I’m going to stay tonight and help you discharge tomorrow, and then I have to go back to work. I’ll stop by your apartment, or wherever you are staying, afterward and I’ll help you with Grace in any way that I can,” Jenn said.

“Thank you, Jenn, thank you so much for everything,” Vic said, squeezing Jenn’s hand back.

After that, the night went quickly. She slept peacefully from how tired the last two days had made her, and even with Grace waking her up every couple of hours to eat or to get changed, Vic woke up peacefully and well-rested. 

The rest of the morning also went by quickly, and she was ready to get out of the hospital. They were pushing her in a wheelchair, she had Grace in her arms, and they were about to make it out of the exit before they were stopped by Maggie Pierce holding them up.

“Hey Vic, I just wanted to give you this in case you needed anything. I’ve helped Meredith with her kids a few times, and I can also be there if you need anybody to talk to whenever,” Maggie said, holding a piece of paper out to Vic, and when she looked down at the paper Vic noticed that it had both Maggie’s work and personal phone number, and it even gave Vic Maggie’s pager number in case there was ever an emergency. 

“Thank you,” Vic said, and she gave Grace to Jenn who was holding her arms out so that she could stand up to give Maggie a hug. 

Maggie laughed, and Vic gave her a kiss on the cheek before sitting back down in the wheelchair. She waved at Maggie one last time.

“Again Vic, if you need anything at all, you just have to let me know okay.”

The Vic continued to be pushed outside of the exit by a nurse, and they met an orderly out there that was putting the things that the hospital had given her for Grace, including the car seat that was now being put into place. Vic stood up and gave Jenn a hug, and thanked her for being there for her.

“Of course Vic, I’ll always be there for you and this cutie pop,” Jenn said, before entering her car and starting the engine. Vic watched Jenn pull out and start driving out of the parking lot. Vic hoped she made it to work on time, even though she knew Jenn had called to let them know that she would most likely be late.

Once the car seat was put into place, Vic entered her own car and started to pull out of the Grey-Sloan parking lot. Once she made it to an intersection that she knew like the back of her hand, she decided to turn right instead of turning left in the direction of her apartment. 

She made her way to a building that she hadn’t been in since Luke had passed away, but there was one other person that she wanted Grace to meet before she went home for the day.

She pulled her Jeep into the Fire Department HQ building and made her way to Battalion Chief Frankel’s office.

Luke had told her that after his second divorce and his friendship with Sullivan had stalled, he didn’t have many close friends. He said that the only person that he would truly consider a close friend during that time would be Frankel. She made her way to her office, and before entering she quietly knocked on the door. 

“Come in,” Frankel said from behind the door.

“Hello Chief Frankel, I hope you weren’t busy but I just wanted you to meet someone.”

Frankel looked up from her office, and the look of surprise on her face would’ve been funny in any other situation.

“Wh — -what happened?” Frankel asked, clearly astonished.

“I had something called a cryptic pregnancy, and the last person I slept with was Luke about nine months ago. He said he considered you a friend, and all my friends and Jenn have met her, and I wanted you to meet her too.”

“Hughes, can I see her?” Frankel asked, and if Vic didn’t know any better than she thought she saw tears of joy and sadness in Frankel’s eyes.

“What’s her name?” Frankel asked, cradling her late friend’s daughter.

“Grace Victoria Hughes-Ripley,” Vic said, somewhat nervously, but the nerves were unfounded.

“Ah Victoria, Lucas did talk about his extended family in Victoria quite a few times,” Frankel asked, and she laughed at the look of nerves on Frankel’s face. “Did you think that I thought you gave your daughter the same middle name as your first name?” 

“Yeah, I did, a little bit?” Vic asked, uncertainly.

“No, I think that it’s a perfect fit, Victoria,” Frankel concluded with sincerity. 

After about an hour of talking, Vic was starting to get a little tired, and so Frankel told her that she needed to go home.

Vic was going to go home, but this trip down memory lane wasn’t over apparently.

Vic stopped outside of the Chief’s office, and even though the nameplate on the door had changed, she still told Grace about all the great work that her daddy had done inside that office. It made Vic sad and cry a little, but not the overwhelming sadness that she had felt the last few days, and even months, but the kind of sadness that marked a fork in the road. She would always miss Luke, and she would probably die with his name on her lips and the hope for an afterlife in which she got to see him again, but now she had something else that was more important to her than grief. She had to be the best mother possible to her little Grace, and she was going to do her absolute best to be the best mother that she could be.

After that, they had one last stop on her list down memory lane. This wouldn’t be the last time that she took this trip with her daughter, but she wanted this first time to be about her starting her trip into motherhood, the next few could be about how amazing a man little Grace’s father had been. 

She got Grace back into her car seat once she made it back to her car, and she pulled out of that parking lot with her destination set before she had even started the ignition.

She made the practiced drive over to Lucas’ house. His mortgage had been paid off before he had passed, and the will hadn’t been changed so it had gone to Jenn. She hadn’t wanted to live in her dead brother’s house, so she kept her own and so she had given it to Vic. She might not live here now, but she might in the future, but for now, it was a storage unit of everything Luke that either Vic or Jenn hadn’t felt ready to take.

She pulled Grace’s car seat with her still in it and pulled out the key that still hung on Vic’s keychain. She opened the door for the first time in a little over nine months.

“Hey babe,” Vic said, on instinct.

This caused the tears to start falling again, but Vic solidified her resolved and continued on to show Grace her dad’s house. They made their way through the house, and if it reminded Vic of anything it was that Luke had been a slob. They made their way through the house, the last room being Luke’s bedroom.

She had been nervous about it, but when she walked into his bedroom she remembered all the good times that they had shared while in that bedroom. The time that they talked about their worst calls in the job, and the time he had taken care of her while she had been sick and they had said they loved each other for the first time being the most prominent in her mind.

“This is where your daddy and I said that we loved each other for the first time, sweet girl,” Vic told her daughter, smiling down at her baby girl.

She set down the car seat, and took her daughter out of it, setting her down on Luke's overly comfortable bed. Grace probably woke up for all of about six-second, before snuggling into the middle of the bed.

Vic laid down on the right side-the side that had used to be her’s- of the bed and she put her right hand over her little girl’s heart. She laid her head down on the pillows, that still smelled so much like Luke, but she couldn’t figure out if it actually smelled like him or if it was something that her mind was making up.

Vic closed her eyes for a few seconds, but she knew that she couldn’t fall asleep. She had to keep an eye on the baby.

“How am I going to do this baby girl? I know that I’m not alone, but I am at home and it can’t just be me,” Vic said softly.

The tears started all over again, and for the first time, it wasn’t because she felt alone or because Luke had passed away. It was because she felt so out of her zone and like she was swimming in the deep end without a lifeguard.

“I think I know what I need to do,” Vic said through the tears.

She got up out of the bed and walked over to the closet while keeping her eye on her daughter. She pulled out Luke’s favorite green sweater, and she quickly pulled it on over her head. She cuddled into it for a second, and then she walked over and put her daughter back into her car seat. She made her way out to her car and put Grace back into her car. For the last time that day, she pulled out and started to make her way to her destination.

She pulled out in front of their house, and after pulling Grace out of the car she made her way to their front door. She rang the doorbell, and only had to wait a few seconds for the door to open.

When it opened, she could notice the slight surprise on Dean’s face, but he opened the door to let her in. Once Vic had put Grace into Pru’s old crib meant for slightly younger babies, she gave Dean a kiss on the cheek for what this meant to her, and she walked into the room she and Grace were sharing and collapsed into bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
